sjc_three wrote:It has to be the most boring qualification group on record for England. The only consolation is a June weekend in Ljubljana for me to look forward to next year, but lord knows how the FA will gee people up to fork out top dollar for Wembley tickets for a qualifying campaign that is largely a foregone conclusion. Famous last words. And to be honest, I hope they are. It would make it more interesting. zzzzzzzzz

Are they locked in to playing their friendlies at Wembley or is there scope for touring around the country? I suppose they have to keep up appearances of showing respect and consideration to their opponents but in all reality qualification will be a formality for England from this group, and as you say getting 80,000 people excited about buying tickets for qualifiers against Lithuania and Estonia is going to be rather difficult. Why not play the Swiss game at Wembley but take the other four to different parts of the country, say for example St James' Park, Villa Park, Anfield and St. Mary's.

From what I understood, just in terms of making their payments, Wembley is absolutely locked in. They've moved the cup semis there for the same reason. You're right though, they'd have a much better chance of filling the likes of St James' Park - or they are going to have to absolutely slash their prices.

I can see the excitement for so many other countries, but this really is going to be a foregone conclusion for a sizeable minority of the "established" nations. Lord knows what Spanish fans are thinking about their group. They could field a youth side and still qualify from that group.

sjc_three wrote:It has to be the most boring qualification group on record for England. The only consolation is a June weekend in Ljubljana for me to look forward to next year, but lord knows how the FA will gee people up to fork out top dollar for Wembley tickets for a qualifying campaign that is largely a foregone conclusion. Famous last words. And to be honest, I hope they are. It would make it more interesting. zzzzzzzzz

Are they locked in to playing their friendlies at Wembley or is there scope for touring around the country? I suppose they have to keep up appearances of showing respect and consideration to their opponents but in all reality qualification will be a formality for England from this group, and as you say getting 80,000 people excited about buying tickets for qualifiers against Lithuania and Estonia is going to be rather difficult. Why not play the Swiss game at Wembley but take the other four to different parts of the country, say for example St James' Park, Villa Park, Anfield and St. Mary's.

Holyjoe wrote:Are they locked in to playing their friendlies at Wembley or is there scope for touring around the country? I suppose they have to keep up appearances of showing respect and consideration to their opponents but in all reality qualification will be a formality for England from this group, and as you say getting 80,000 people excited about buying tickets for qualifiers against Lithuania and Estonia is going to be rather difficult. Why not play the Swiss game at Wembley but take the other four to different parts of the country, say for example St James' Park, Villa Park, Anfield and St. Mary's.

Ireland, Poland and Georgia are suddenly feeling a little bit more confident.I know Scotland generally starts slowly (before beating the likes of Holland with a backheelafter beating 6 or 7 geezers with a mazy run) but giving it away before a ball has even been kicked?

nzfooty wrote:I apologise, I may have been poking fun (in my not exactly sober state) without realising the shirt has some historical significance. If that is the case, I apologise for my ignorance.

It's not just drunk people who are poking fun. As I said on the kit thread, if they had gone with the original primrose and pink kit from historical times it would have been a whole lot worse. Although there's a bloke, John Devlin, who has written books about kits and who runs this site http://www.truecoloursfootballkits.com/ ... ment-21172 writing in 2010 who probably single-handedly deserves a fair bit of the blame/credit.

I think the primrose/pink kit would work with either navy trim/shorts or white trim/shorts to be honest. Of the top of my head though with very few exceptions adidas don’t tend to go use past kits as inspiration though do they? Can’t see the Roseberry colours ever coming back but I would love to see them.

The fact that John is English only makes it even more funny. I can only imagine he's receiving a lot of free rounds at the moment.

The last time scotland wore a pink away shirt was back in the 1998-2000 period. We wore it in a friendly against Germany in 1999 and beat them 1-0 in Bremen so if pink works again this time then it's fine by me. Still a hideous shirt though, even Ronald McDonald would think twice before wearing that to bed...

Also Norway, who were at their all-time peak at the time. They won that 94 qualifying group, finishing above Holland(they beat the Dutch at home and left Rotterdam with a point - a week after beating England). At the World Cupthey were desperately unlucky to be eliminated after the first stage. All teams in the group (Ireland, Italy and Mexico were the other teams) ended up with 4 points and goal difference 0. It was goals for (GF) that was the difference between top and bottom. Their only loss came against Italy who went on to make the final.

I would also disagree about England having an easy group in the 2014 qualifiers. They lacked a big team in their group(the way Spain had France) but in terms of depth that was one of the hardest groups. I did this on another site but Icompared the strength of the 2014 groups based on the bet365 odds the nations got for doing well at Euro 2016 andEngland's group game out as 3rd or 4th hardest.

It makes sense too. The Ukraine and Poland did not play any qualifiers as Euro 2012 hosts - hence their FIFA rankings suffered. Had they participated in the qualifiers they may not have ended up in pots 3 and 4 (with the likes of Albania andLithuania). Ukraine nearly took France out in the play-offs. (Groups should not be based solely on FIFA rankings).

Now Montenegro are an enigma. Played well in EURO 2012 qualifiers - and ended up with a place in pot 2 for the2014 World Cup qualifiers. Not only that, they were the second highest ranked team in pot 2, sandwiched by Franceand Russia. They started really well, but had they fell apart at the end with heavy losses against Ukraine and England. In their last match (at home) they got also completely trashed by Moldova (5-2). (Again, groups should not be based solely on FIFA rankings).